Pleating for Mercy

by Melissa Bourbon

  It took me just eight minutes to walk from the Sheriff’s Department to the square. One more block and I’d be home. First order of business? Scour Meemaw’s boxes and jars of trims looking for anything that might create the odd pattern left on Nell’s neck. I prayed I wouldn’t find a thing, which would mean whoever killed Nell used cording or trim from somewhere else, not from Buttons & Bows.

  My shoulders drooped. So many people had been in the shop the day Nell had died. The place had been chaos. It would have been easy for someone to pocket a random piece of trim with no one the wiser.

  My pace slowed as I passed the ice cream parlor, a throwback to the early twentieth century, before Baskin-Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery existed. The red-and-white awning and matching interior of Two Scoops was enough to make a girl feel like she was five years old and clamoring for a double-dip cone.

  Bliss was waking up. When I’d left the shop with Sheriff McClaine and Josie, only the birds and insects had rubbed the sleep out of their eyes. Now cars were parked, angled in, at Villa Farina. People spilled out onto the sidewalk as they sipped their coffee and tea and wallowed in carb heaven.

  In the short time I’d been back in Bliss, the Italian Pasticceria had become one of my favorite places on the square. Villa Farina, owned and operated by pastry chef Bobby Farina, a third-generation baker who’d moved to Bliss with his wife, Colleen, carried on the family tradition of mini Italian pastries just like the original bakery in New York. I’d never been to the New York store, but I could live happily in the Bliss establishment. From cannoli to sfogliatelle, superthin layered dough with light orange-ricotta filling, everything chef Bobby made could bring a grown man to tears.

  Like a fish being caught on a line, I caught a whiff of roasted coffee beans and I was hooked. A shot of caffeine. Just what I needed. I followed the ribbon of scent, hurried across the street, cut in front of the courthouse, crossed the opposite street, and shambled into Villa Farina.

  Once inside, I sucked in the deepest breath I could muster. It was April, warmer today than it had been all week, but the weather didn’t make a lick of difference to me. I could drink a hot cup of joe on a sweltering day just as easily as I could in forty-degree weather. Ground beans and warm pastries soothed my soul.

  I waited in line. Gina, a college student who worked for Farina’s and looked like a tough Jersey girl with her two-toned black-and-red hair, was all country on the inside. “Morning, Harlow,” she greeted when it was my turn, her voice pleasantly husky like Taylor Swift’s. “I’d ask if you want the usual, but y’all always get something different.”

  Gina used “y’all” to refer to one person or a group of people. Still, I glanced over my shoulder to see if this time someone else was behind me.

  No. I was at the end of the line. One of these days I’d stop looking.

  “I have to try one of everything before I can decide what I like best,” I said.

  “What’ll it be today?”

  I took it all in, finally deciding on a pasticciotti. She put the cream puff on a thick white plate, added a fork, and went to work making my cinnamon dolce latte.

  My name is Harlow Jane Cassidy and I’m a carb addict.

  “Sad about Nell,” Gina said over her shoulder. “I heard they brought Josie Sandoval in for questioning.”

  Bad news traveled fast in a small town. “Sheriff McClaine had a few questions for her. Since she discovered the body and all.” I threw in the last part to give some context to Josie’s questioning. Villa Farina was the gossip hub of the square. Hopefully Gina would spread my explanation and suspicion about why Josie was questioned would be defused.

  She finished foaming my milk and poured it into the espresso she’d brewed. “Is she, gonna, like, inherit Seed-n-Bead?”

  I stared at Gina’s back, speechless for a second. First, because to inherit something required that there be a will, and I hadn’t marked Nell as a planner. Second, it hadn’t occurred to me that Nell and Josie were that close. Friends, yes. Coworkers, also yes. But businesses were passed from generation to generation within a family.

  “Why on earth would Nell leave her business to Josie?” I asked when she came back to the counter with my coffee.

  Gina shrugged. “Way I heard it, Nell didn’t have anyone else. Might as well leave it to Josie. They were close, far as I could tell.”

  I laid six dollars and some change on the counter to pay for my morning calories. “Yes, but do you think Nell had actually made a will?” That took a lot of forethought. “I only met her once, but she didn’t strike me as the type.”

  Through the small windows of the swinging doors, I could see Bobby rolling out some pastry dough. A new confection to add to the day’s offerings. Colleen came through the doors carrying a tray loaded down with a fresh batch of éclairs. A line had started to form behind me. Gina leaned over the counter, all cloak-and-daggerlike, and whispered, “I know she did. She’s been in here with her lawyer.”

  “So?”

  “Just last week,” she said conspiratorially.

  That was interesting, but . . . “Okay, but they could have been discussing anything,” I said, scooting over so the man behind me could place his order.

  “Uh-uh.” Gina rang him up and grabbed him a fresh éclair. “They were definitely talking about her will. I didn’t hear the details, though. Whatever she decided, he didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  Gina took the man’s money and handed him his plate, going straight to work on his coffee order. “They went back and forth for a while.” She talked louder over the whir of the machine as she heated the milk. “She seemed pretty determined to do what she wanted from where I was standing. Which was right here,” she added over her shoulder.

  I scanned the café portion of the bakery. Three small round tables sat in the center and either side wall had three square tops. There was no way Gina would have heard a conversation that took place at one of the front left tables. “Where did they sit?”

  She pointed at the table closest to the counter, right next to us.

  Huh. So Gina had heard their conversation. I didn’t know what it might mean, but the fact that Nell had drafted a will just a week before her murder seemed suspicious.

  I had Gina put my lemon cream puff in a bag and left, realizing I should have asked who Nell’s lawyer was. I peeked back in the bakery, but the line was already out the door. I was not Nancy Drew, I reminded myself. I’d just pass the information on to the sheriff and let him deal with it.

  I started to turn left so I could take Mockingbird Lane all the way home, but stopped in my tracks. Seed-n-Bead was right next door on the right. I did an abrupt change of direction and stood in front of the bead shop. I’d intended to stop by many times since I’d been back in Bliss, and now I was kicking myself for not making the time. I would have liked to have known Nell better, if only because she died on my property.

  The CLOSED sign hung on the door and the inside lights were off. With Josie and Nate still presumably with the sheriff and Nell probably on a cold slab in some morgue in Fort Worth, there was no one to open the store.

  Would Josie try to keep it going? She hadn’t said anything about it and I hadn’t asked. If Nell had left the store to her, did she know?

  When I’d first opened up the dressmaking shop, I’d planned to collaborate with the bead shop to bring in trendy accessories to complement my designs. Things like cuffs, double-stranded necklaces with chunky flowers and pendants, and simple bracelets to match my casual creations.

  I needed a bead source, too, especially if my wedding gowns ever really took off.

  Cupping my hands on either side of my face, I peered in the window. It was a long, narrow space. Tables lined the perimeter, stacked with square containers holding beads. Sample jewelry and strands of beads hung from pegs and display boards.

  The question that had continually run through my mind since last night was, Who had something to gain by Nell being dead? A while ago, I’d though
t that any motive Josie might have had was flimsy at best. But if she was the benefactor of Nell’s will—well, that changed things.

  I walked home, sipping my coffee, swinging my pastry bag, and thinking. I didn’t like that line of thinking, though. Josie was marrying Nate, after all, and Nate came from one of the wealthiest families in the county. Josie wouldn’t need to work if she didn’t want to. No, I felt sure there was someone with a stronger motive for killing Nell. If I wanted to help clear Josie’s name, then I had to search for a different answer. Someone else who had something to gain by Nell’s death.

  Chapter 14

  I studied the facade of Meemaw’s redbrick farmhouse as I approached. The garden was green and colorful with too many varieties of flowers to count. The arbor was like a welcome mat, telling people to step right through into the magical land of Buttons & Bows.

  The only thing missing was a sign. And a group of customers clamoring to get into the shop. A sign wouldn’t bring instant business, but if I wanted people to stop by and commission couture fashion, they needed to know I was here. I added signage to my mental list of things to take care of.

  I walked through the arbor and up the flagstone path. Like a magnet to steel, my gaze was drawn to the depression in the bluebonnets left by Nell’s body. I slowed down, pondering the woman who’d died there, but I was propelled up the porch steps as if pushed by two invisible hands. I barely managed to flip the wooden CLOSED sign to OPEN and unlock the door before I stumbled inside, muttering, “Who could have killed her?”

  I realized that I half expected Meemaw to materialize and answer me. I thought I felt her presence more and more in the old house, but it was quite possible that I was simply losing my mind. “And why kill Nell here?” I asked, my voice louder this time.

  “If not here, it would have happened somewhere else.”

  My hands flew up, knocking my glasses clear off my face as I screamed. My heart thudded in my ears. I flung my pastry bag halfway across the room and my nearly empty coffee cup went flying.

  Behind me, the door slammed shut.

  That had not been Meemaw’s voice, which would have been freaky enough. But no, it was a man. Here, inside my shop. Inside my house.

  I forced my heart out of my throat, mustered all my courage, and whirled around, brandishing my purse as a weapon. It made contact with someone. Without my glasses, and high on adrenaline, I saw the man only as a blur in my line of vision. Tall. Swarthy. Baseball cap turned backward. Wielding a hammer.

  I held one arm out like I was Diana Ross singing “Stop in the Name of Love.” “Who are you?” I said in my best Sigourney Weaver kick-ass voice.

  “Take it easy, Cassidy.”

  Oh my . . . Meemaw was the only one who called me Cassidy instead of Harlow. Was this a home invasion? Had he already riffled through my personal journals to get to know his victim?

  “Who are you?” I repeated, swinging my purse again at his fuzzy form. I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  He took a step back, waving a hand in front of him. “Whoa, what’s in there? Bricks?”

  “Ha, very original,” I scoffed. “The usual. Wallet. A paperback. Pepper spray.” I was lying about the pepper spray. I had some in a drawer upstairs. Never left home in New York without it, but I hadn’t thought it was necessary in Bliss.

  I advanced on him, swinging my purse with intention this time, back and forth, back and forth. “Now,” I said, sounding much more confident than I felt considering this could well be Nell’s killer, “for the last time, who the hell are you?”

  Chapter 15

  “I’m Will Flores.” When I stared at him blankly, he continued. “I came by to fix a few things?”

  The surprise of finding him in the house had me in a New York state of mind. By that, I mean hyperwary. “By breaking and entering?”

  A look of indignation formed on his face. “Uh, no.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Then how’d you get in here? I know I locked the door.”

  My body tensed, my grip tightening on the strap of my purse, as he reached into his jeans pocket. His hand reappeared a second later holding up a key.

  I darted forward to snatch it out of his hand, but he palmed it. “How’d you get a key to my house?”

  “Loretta Mae gave it to me.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Uh, yes, she did.”

  I peered at him, trying to focus my vision. Who did he think he was? “She would not have given some stranger a key,” I said slowly. He could not pull the wool over my eyes.

  He raised one irritated eyebrow. “First of all,” he said, “I wasn’t a stranger.”

  I could feel the dark, scorching look he had trained on me and it sent a chill up my spine.

  “And second of all, it’s not like you’ve been around here the last”—he made a show of counting on his fingers—“fifteen years to know whether or not your great-grandmother gave me a key.”

  The words slashed the air between us, carving a hole right through my heart. How did he know how long I’d been gone, or that Loretta Mae was my great-grandmother? My temperature skyrocketed. I sputtered, speechless.

  But he went on, cool as a cucumber. “She would be horrified to see you’ve lost every ounce of whatever Southern grace you once possessed.”

  I gasped, recoiling like I’d been slapped across the face. How dare he stand in my house and hurl . . . The truth dawned on me. Oh. My. God. This guy was one of those scammers who duped the elderly. “Get out.”

  He spun around, muttering something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like, “There you go, right there, damn Yankee.”

  “I am not a Yankee,” I said, shooting daggers at him. Like my long-departed Uncle Jimmy used to say, “Once a Texan, always a Texan.”

  Will Flores, whoever he was, had planted a seed, though. A fissure of doubt opened up inside me. Could I have lost some of my Southernness? And why did the mere idea of it fill me with such sadness?

  He threw up his hands, the hammer still gripped in one. “Let’s start again, shall we?”

  I shook my head. “We’re not starting anything until you drop your weapon.”

  He glanced at the tool, then at me, one side of his mouth curving up. “Por supuesto,” he said, then quickly added, “Sure.”

  As he turned to set it down on the antique desk next to the workroom, I scrounged for my glasses, finding them on the seat of the settee.

  When he turned, I got a clearer look at him. Still tall, maybe six feet one. Still wearing a rear-facing ball cap. A Longhorns cap, which meant he couldn’t be all bad. Still swarthy. Puerto Rican, maybe? No, Mexican. And a goatee.

  One thing was for sure. He was handsome as all getout, but in an arrogant, Rhett Butler kind of way.

  “I’m Will Flores,” he said again. “Your great-grandmother arranged a standing handyman appointment with me. Every Tuesday, I come by to do whatever repairs are needed.”

  Right. Like I was going to buy that. I kept my purse at the ready. “I’ve been here for almost two months. That’s eight Tuesdays. So, where’ve you been?”

  Before he could answer, I continued. “You’re pretty unreliable. Loretta Mae wouldn’t have tolerated that.”

  “I’ve been out of town on business. Happens every now and then. Loretta Mae didn’t have a problem with it.”

  “Handyman business? Uh-uh. Loretta Mae expected people to be dependable.”

  “No, not handyman business, and I am dependable.”

  “When it suits you.”

  “All the time.”

  We went back and forth until steam was ready to come out my ears. Why would Meemaw have agreed to some half-cocked arrangement with this guy—

  And then it hit me. I smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Oh, no, Meemaw. No, no, no.”

  The sheers on either side of the front window fluttered. God almighty, this was a fix-up from the great beyond. Meemaw wanted me back home and here I was. She wanted this ha
ndyman to come around weekly and here he was. Now, lo and behold, here we were, together.

  Somewhere, Loretta Mae was nodding her head in complete satisfaction.

  Will gave the windows a quick examination. He shook his head. “There’s no place a draft could be coming from. I sealed those windows myself.” He turned back to me, the right side of his mouth quirking up. “Looks like you have a ghost in the house, Cassidy.”

  With those ten words, my world came to a staggering halt. My mind raced. The gathering room had been Loretta Mae’s favorite spot. I spun, taking a careful look around, absorbing every detail and comparing them to the details of the past. Even with the addition of my things, the room maintained the same feeling it had when Meemaw was right here.

  Dappled sunlight shone through the front window. The warm mustard color of the walls and the antique furniture made it cozy. The magazines were neatly stacked on the coffee table and two pairs of flip-flops, one black, one brown, sat side by side right next to the front door. The pictures hanging on the display board were perfectly aligned. Everything was just as it should be. As it always had been.

  Will said something and I registered him going from window to window, but I was too distracted now to pay attention. Loretta Mae always said she’d wanted me home in Bliss so she could spend more time with me. Recently I’d felt drafts of air and heard doors slam when all the windows were closed. Could it be . . . could she really still be here in the house?

  It was an impossible idea. Goat-whispering and a bionic green thumb were a far cry from haunting. Even for a Cassidy woman. And yet . . .

  I could test the theory, couldn’t I? If she was really here, would she materialize if I asked her to?

  The idea stuck with me. I dug in my purse until I found my little portable sewing kit, something I carried at all times. Inside was a mini pincushion with a needle, a tape measure, and spools of white and black thread, all for emergency clothing repair. Grabbing the black thread, I set it next to Will’s hammer on the antique desk.